If you take away just one thing from this book, let it be the motivation to write a meal plan—every single week.
No other act impacts a week of cooking more. When you have a meal plan, the 4 p.m. Dinner Panic never sets in. You waste no time wandering around a grocery store, looking for something to inspire you. And you stop yourself from eating the same turkey chili over and over and over again.
A good meal plan is a visual representation of what your week of cooking looks like. I write my plans in a 4 by 7 grid, with the days of the week across the top and Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Prep down the left-hand side. The Prep column is crucial—it’s where I list all the little things I’ll cook, organize, or chop to make the rest of the week’s meals easier. After my dinners are filled in, I grab a pen of a different color (I usually choose red) and mark up my meal plan with arrows to indicate where I’ll use leftovers and nextovers. As I do this, I take a few things into consideration:
Time: I weigh what I’m going to cook against everything else I have happening that week. When I know that Monday’s going to be a late night at work, I’ll plan to make a big pot of soup on Sunday, or pencil in a dinner that comes together quickly from the pantry (see my sardine sandwich on here). On nights when I have more time, I’ll schedule nextover cooking to give myself a head start on the rest of the week.
Health: Maybe you’re counting calories, or watching your protein and carb intake. Me? I’m making sure I have a lot of vegetables in my week, and that they’re a good mix of green and leafy (kale, chard, romaine) and orange and meaty (carrots, sweet potatoes, squash). Whatever healthy means to you, a meal plan is a way to ensure you eat that way. (A note of full disclosure: I also schedule a batch of cookies or brownies every week, because I get cranky if these things are not around.)
Variety: I try to avoid monotony. In fact, it’s one of the COOK90 tenets: to push against the impulse to always cook what we already know. When I write a meal plan, I work in recipes that I’ve never tried before, and different kinds of cooking—shallow-frying, for example, or ceviche, both of which I’d like to get better at. Since new techniques always take longer than familiar ones, I schedule these recipes for the weekend, and stick to more familiar territory on weeknights.